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Martian Dust Devils & The Shuttles | SciByte 43

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We take a look at aurora on Uranus, Martian dust devils, counting penguins, Apollo 8 images, the high altitude jet stream, the latest on the shuttles, and as always take a peek back into history and up in the sky this week.

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Show Notes:

Uranus Aurora



Credit: Laurent Lamy

  • The low down
    • Unlike the other planets Uranus has a bizarre 98-degree tilt relative to the solar system’s orbital plane and its magnetic axis is 60 degrees off from that
    • This unusual configuration makes the planet appear to roll around on its side as it orbits the sun every 84 years
    • When magnetic field lines converge, at a planet’s poles, they funnel incoming charged solar particles into the planet’s atmosphere
    • When those particles collide with air molecules, making the molecules glow producing Aurora
    • Now an international team of astronomers have used the Hubble Space Telescope to capture the first aurora seen on Uranus from Earth
  • Significance
    • Scientists first observed the planet’s auroras only once, during a Voyager flyby in 1986 on the night side of the planet
    • There the probe’s instruments had a much better view of the glows, which lasted longer, covered a larger area, and covered the unlit side of Uranus
    • Scientists unsuccessfully tried to again detect this phenomenon in 1998 and 2005 from the Earth
    • The new observations of the Aurora seemed to indicate they lasted for only a couple of minutes
    • Different planetary arrangements could explain the significant differences in the two observations
    • In 1986 planet’s rotational axis was pointed almost directly at the sun, whereas in in 2011 the axis lay almost perpendicular to the flow of solar wind
    • When the team learned of an impending solar storm directed toward Uranus, timed their Hubble observations specifically to coincide with the solar storm
    • The storm would hit 3 months after the strong gust in the solar wind raced past Earth on its way to Uranus
    • In November 2011 researchers caught their first glimpse of the brief auroras from our planet’s neighborhood six weeks later
    • This new observational data should help scientists better understand Uranus odd magnetic field
  • Of Note
    • Further investigations into Uranus’ auroras and magnetic field could provide insight into Earth’s own magnetosphere and how it interacts with the solar wind
    • This information will become invaluable with our ever increasing technological society
  • Multimedia
  • Further Reading / In the News

*— NEWS BYTE — *

Martian Dust Devils

Credit: MSSS / JPL / NASA

Studying the high-altitude jet stream



Credit: NASA Wallops

  • The low down
    • After several days of delays due to the weather NASA launched the 5 ATREX rockets within 5 min of each other on March 27
    • Each of the rockets released a chemical tracer that was used to get more data of the high-altitude jet stream located 60–65 mi [95–105 km]
    • Two of the rockets also contained instruments to measure temperature and pressure
    • Hopefully this data will help us to better understand the processes behind this jet stream
  • Significance
    • The high-altitude jet stream that this project was looking at is much higher than the one in the nightly weather report
    • The upper jet-stream typically has winds of about 200–300 mph [320–480 km/hr] and is a region of electrical turbulence that can affect satellites and radio
  • Of Note
    • NASA will release more information about the outcome of the mission after scientists have had time to review the data
  • Multimedia
  • Further Reading / In the News

*— TWO-BYTE NEWS — *

Counting Penguins from space



Credit: (left) DigitalGlobe; (right) British Antarctic Survey

  • The low down
    • A simple snap of a photograph of a penguin colony, and some marking can help scientist accurately count the number of penguins in a colony
    • Those numbers are hard to get however in remote places, especially in the Antarctic
    • A new technique uses satellite imaging to report results
  • Of Note
    • Scientists have now found twice as many Emperor penguins than thought to exist
    • This brings the total colonies to 44 (7 new ones) and ~595,000 (+/- 81,000)
  • Further Reading / In the News

The view from Apollo 8

  • The low down
    • December 24, 1968, Apollo 8 : Commander Frank Borman and crew members William A. Anders and James A. Lovell, Jr. became the first humans to photograph the Earth rising over the moon.
    • This video recreates what they saw, and interweaves the photographs they took and hear the original audio recording
  • Multimedia

Asteroid Lutetia Flyby

  • The low down
    • Images from ESA’s robotic Rosetta spacecraft were compiled to make a video of the bly-by it made
  • The mission was focused on determining the origins of the asteroid and it’s unusual colors by taking data and images
  • Multimedia

SPACECRAFT UPDATE

The Shuttle Shuffle



Credit: Ken Kremer

Private deliveries to the Space Station

  • The historic flight of the first commercial transport to the International Space Station, The Dragon, now has a launch date of around May 7.

SCIENCE CALENDER

Looking back

  • April 25, 1990 : 22 years ago : Hubble Space Telescope Deployed : In 1990, the $2.5 billion Hubble Space Telescope was deployed in space from the Space Shuttle Discovery into an orbit 381 miles above Earth. It was the first major orbiting observatory, named in honour of American astronomer, Edwin Powell Hubble. It was seven years behind schedule and nearly $2 billion over budget. In orbit, the 94.5-in primary mirror was found to be flawed, giving blurred images and reduced ability to see distant stars. However, correcting optics were successfully installed in 25 Dec 1993. The telescope 43-ft x 14-ft telescope now provides images with a clarity otherwise impossible due to the effect of the earth’s atmosphere. Instrument packages capture across the electromagnetic spectrum.

Looking up this week